Castro aims to learn much from Israel

Mayor and others from S.A. are on an 'economic study mission.'

Mayor Julián Castro is expected to arrive in Israel this morning, leading a delegation of San Antonio business, utility and Jewish community leaders on his first trip to the Holy Land.

Billed as an “economic study mission,” and sponsored in part by the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, the six-day trip will focus, organizers say, on establishing ties with Israel in several areas, including biomedical and trauma research, water management and clean-energy technologies.

The group will visit a brackish water desalination plant, the trauma center at the Hadassah Medical and Research Center, and meet entrepreneurs in solar, electric car and other high-tech industries.

Israel is a world leader in those areas and has much to offer San Antonio, which is working to develop those industries locally, Castro said.

“We would very much like to create relationships that will bear fruit in research and job creation,” he said.

A preliminary agreement is being negotiated between BioMed SA, the nonprofit created to promote and accelerate San Antonio's biomedical research sector, and Jerusalem BioMed in the area of trauma research with a focus on the military.

Castro hopes that agreement, and perhaps others, will be signed on this trip.

“There's a real synergy there,” Castro said. “San Antonio is a leader in water conservation, as is Israel, by necessity. There may be an exchange of research and resources.”

But the trip will not be all business. The group of more than two dozen, which includes Mike Beldon of Beldon Roofing, a former president of the Jewish Federation of San Antonio and a close adviser to Castro; Cris Eugster, chief sustainability officer for CPS Energy; Ann Stevens, president of BioMed SA; and Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, will also visit historic and religious sites in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

They will meet with Howard S. Feinberg, current president of the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, who is already in Israel, along with Rabbi Chaim Block of Chabad Lubavich of South Texas, and Rabbi Barry Block of Temple Beth-El of San Antonio.

The trip, Feinberg said, will give Castro and other city leaders the chance to study elements of Israeli society that relate to initiatives they are pushing in San Antonio.

“The Jewish community is honored to support those initiatives, which we think are important to the growth and development of the city,” he said Saturday from Israel.

Israeli Consul General Meir Shlomo of Houston is also traveling with the group, which will meet with Israeli elected officials as well.

In between official meetings, the jam-packed agenda includes a walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem; a guided visit to the newly renovated Yad Vashem complex, the Jewish National Memorial to the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust; a trip through the Golan Heights; and a visit to the Old City of Jaffa.

Castro is also expected to meet privately with President Shimon Peres.

“It's such an honor to have that privilege,” he said.

The mayor, along with several others making the trip, is reading “Start-Up Nation: The story of Israel's Economic Miracle,” a Council on Foreign Relations book that seeks to answer the question of how Israel, a nation of 7.1 million people that is just 60 years old, in a constant state of war and with no natural resources, has more companies on the NASDAQ than all of Europe, Korea, Japan, India and China combined.

“Israel is a great example of an entrepreneurial nation,” Castro said Friday from Charlotte, N.C., where he was attending a League of Cities conference. “We can learn a lot and benefit from a strong relationship with them.”